Editorial: Never again

Sunday is bound to be emo­tion­ally tough for most people who love Amer­ica. We lost our in­no­cence and sense of se­cur­ity 10 years ago. Things have nev­er been the same as they were be­fore the ter­ror­ist at­tacks and nev­er will.

Make no mis­take: Nine months after he took of­fice, George W. Bush — who had lost the pop­u­lar vote for pres­id­ent but won the Elect­or­al Col­lege and there­fore the pres­id­ency, thanks to a ques­tion­able de­cision by the U.S. Su­preme Court, and then went on to gov­ern as though he had won a land­slide, man­date-pro­du­cing vic­tory — saw him­self sag­ging in most polls. Let’s be hon­est: The 9/11 ter­ror­ist at­tacks greatly boos­ted his pres­id­ency, be­cause the hor­rors of that day uni­fied the na­tion around Mr. Bush like noth­ing else could.

Dis­miss con­spir­acy the­or­ists’ claims that Mr. Bush knew about 9/11 be­fore­hand but figured it would help res­cue his pres­id­ency, and what you have is a pres­id­ent who made it pos­sible for us to re­flect on that day a dec­ade later.

Un­der Mr. Bush’s watch, and now, un­der Mr. Obama’s watch, we the people clearly are do­ing something right. An at­tack by Is­lam­ic mad­men has not happened, due in large part to the di­li­gence of the CIA, the FBI and co­oper­a­tion every­where, in­clud­ing air­line pas­sen­gers.

Yes, re­mov­ing your socks and shoes and al­low­ing everything on your per­son to go through a scan­ner at the air­port is a pain in the butt, but when all is said and done, it’s a tiny price to pay for the as­sur­ance that your air­plane is free of weapons. Ten years after Amer­ica was brought to her knees, she’s do­ing OK.

Cit­izens, re­mem­ber your heart out on Sunday, and keep up the good work.